Talking About Politics

US Politics

With the controversy heating up over whether to impeach Donald Trump, I decided to search my bookshelves for my volume of essays by the great German sociologist Max Weber. A century ago, Weber formulated a classic statement of the tension ...

We continue to hear a lot of concern that the Democrats could blow their chance for defeating Trump in 2020 by veering too far to the left. I’ve already expressed my belief that such concerns are overblown, that a fairly ...

Even after two years of Donald Trump’s presidency, people who should know better still have trouble calling respected public figures “liar.” So, even the very insightful Benjamin Wittes, in an otherwise fine analysis that excoriates William Barr for multiple deceptions, thinks ...

One outcome of the 2016 election has been renewed interest in reforming the way we elect the President of the US. It is now fairly commonplace for progressives to call for abolition of the electoral college (EC) so as to ...

I am reluctant to try to add to the mountains of good commentary on the Mueller report that you can find in the various media. For an excellent short take, I would point you, as I often do, to Mother ...

As a practical matter, there was little chance that the Israeli election outcome would have any impact on the prospects for a peace settlement in Israel/Palestine. Benjamin Netanyahu will be returned to office after a campaign in which he proclaimed ...

Just a quickie today, to pass on this fine piece by Eric Alterman, following up on my recent post on Bernie Sanders. The main thrust of it is that Bernie is too vulnerable to GOP smear attacks and therefore too ...

It’s a pretty safe assumption that Robert Mueller wrote an executive summary for his report. It’s also pretty safe to assume that such a summary would not contain classified information. So, why did William Barr write his own summary of ...

The question that I’ve raised in earlier posts—whether Democrats’ political prospects are better advanced with a relatively centrist or with a more leftist, progressive policy approach and strategy—has continued to generate controversy. Even the normally lay-back Jimmy Carter got into ...

I do hope this is the last post I do on this topic. Let’s be clear: Ilan Omar did not accuse Jews of dual loyalty. Her remarks should be read in full context, which is usefully quoted by Phyllis Bennis, ...